Further Thoughts on the New Feminine

As if we don’t have enough portentous questions to solve, let me add another. Who will replace the vanishing Playboy Magazine “Playgirl” as the next popular ideal of American Beauty? With obesity in both sexes already beyond fifty-percent and growing, can the longings of the American male accommodate themselves to the reality of the New Feminine, or – or what?

There is a self-parodying joke about the Jewish man who, when told that the elephant population in a region of India was declining at an alarming rate, asked if that was good or bad for the Jews? We must ask, is the eclipse of the long-legged, slim and admirably proportioned, high-cheeked, sexy woman good or bad for men?

Every age has had its definition of femininity. In recent memory there were the Gibson girl (ample), the flapper (bold, unconventional), Rosie the Riveter, (World War II worker), the Bobby-Soxer, and of course, the Playgirl. Obesity was not in style. The early American woman tended toward sliminess, for among other factors, the hard physical life of a pioneering and the dominance of the farm life kept the weight down.

Concepts of physical attractiveness are, as anthropological studies have shown, malleable. Over the centuries, concepts of female physical beauty have ranged widely each having their day. Venus was the ideal in ancient times; in medieval Europe diminutiveness and daintiness in feet, hands, breasts and long necks were prized; women of some weight are considered desirable in parts of the world (the (Middle East); gaudily painted faces in some cultures (African) are the custom; the short and squat women of the Arctic have no difficulty in finding mates. In contemporary times the suburban, gym-muscled, self-assured woman, a more attainable model than Playgirl, command deep respect. Question: How flexible will the American man now be in his concept of female beauty? Judging from worldwide cultures – and from what I have observed daily in my strolls around my home town (Salem MA), he will meet the test of gallantry.

Did I say male sexual selection – and I could add female sexual identity – is malleable? In fact it seems that men and women will buy whatever happens to be in stock at the time. Maybe sexual selection should be noted and reviewed in the fashion magazines, the way high skirts-low skirts and tight jackets-loose jackets are critiqued.

More Later, Joe